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that bore! If you have any information on other caves in the area, let me know -- they too may tie in with this one, though if they do, their connections are very deep. Also, if you can, please describe the equipment that made that vertical shaft. Oh, yes, one more interesting item -- the surveyors in their exploration of the cave, distinctly heard the rumble of machinery -- but their calculations proved they were nowhere near a large city (surface) and they were too deep for the surface noises otherwise. What is the answer?

   --- George A. LeHew., 1918 W. Newport Ave., Chicago 13, Illinois

For a possible description of the principles which might have made this bore, I now quote from pages 71-72 of Erich von Daniken's book "THE GOLD OF THE GODS":

   "I can refute the objection that the (ancient) tunnel builders must have 'betrayed' themselves by the enormous quantities of debris excavated while making the tunnels. As I credit them with an advanced technology, they were presumably equipped with a thermal drill of the kind describes in DER SPIEGEL for April 3, 1972, which reported it as the latest discovery.

   “The scientists of the U.S. Laboratory for Atomic Research at Los Alamos spent a year and a half developing the thermal drill. It has nothing in common with ordinary drills. The tip of the drill is made of wolfram and heated by a graphite heating element. There is no longer any waste material from the hole being drilled. The thermal drill melts the rock through which it bores and presses it against the walls, where it cools down. As DER SPIEGEL related, the first test-model bored almost soundlessly through blocks of stone 12 feet thick. At Los Alamos they are now planning the